Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

putting Ariana and Phin at the beginning, she thought she was reducing Ariana’s motivation even as the bargain became harder and harder to keep.
    Samuel shook his head. “Phin, Jesse, Gabriel, Ariana, me, and Mercedes.”
    â€œI am getting bored,” said the queen. “Agreed. The bargain is struck.”
    Ariana gave Samuel a narrow- eyed look—I think it was because he put her before him. But I agreed with him. Get the helpless ones out first, then those who could best protect themselves. That meant Ariana before Samuel.
    â€œThe bargain is accepted,” agreed Ariana, and she stepped forward, embracing the flaming fae. As soon as she touched him, her hair burst into flame as did her clothing, and what was not burnable dropped to the ground, including the stone Zee had given her to hold. Its steady light was almost unnoticeable against the flames as the rest of Ariana smoldered a moment before lighting up as well.
    â€œShe holds earth, air, fire, and water,” Samuel told me. If I hadn’t known him as well as I did, I might have thought he was disinterested. “It is what made her able to do great magic after most of Underhill was out of reach. Magic fire will do her no harm.”
    The queen was speaking to the witch. After she was finished talking, the witch stood up, a steel knife in her hand. She gathered up her chains and moved to the farthest extent, which left her just able to reach the forest lord. She plunged the knife into the tree-like creature, and it bellowed, shook, and bled amber fluid onto the knife. The floor moved under my feet and the ceiling roots contracted and wiggled.
    Samuel put a hand under my elbow to steady me—so I knew the blood had worked. He could see through the glamour to the reality of what we dealt with.
    The witch licked the knife and dipped a finger into the cut she’d made in the trapped fae. She used that finger to draw symbols that hung in the air where she’d put them, and glowed a sickly yellow. She pulled up her shirt to expose the skin of her belly, then she reached into the air and grabbed the symbols and slapped them onto her bare skin. When she was finished, she walked back to the throne, sat down, and finished cleaning the blade with her tongue. She caught me watching her and smiled.
    Maybe she didn’t know about the glamour, or maybe she thought I was afraid of cats. One thing was for sure: she knew that I was scared of her. I wished I knew what she had done.
    Whatever it was, it was unlikely to be helpful to us. And we needed help. Three minutes times six is eighteen—and Zee had already been holding the entrance open for a while. Adding eighteen minutes was going to push him well beyond the hour he’d promised. The fairy queen wouldn’t need Zee’s opening to allow them to leave—but if it was still open, then they would walk out on the same day they’d entered.
    The time was up at last, and the fae Ariana held turned to ice. Three minutes is a long time to hold on to a giant ice cube. I couldn’t understand why Ariana continued to hug him close instead of holding him more loosely so not as much of her was against him. Especially as all of her clothes had burned away and she was naked, with nothing between her and the ice.
    â€œFlesh to flesh, remember,” said the fairy queen in such a grumpy tone that I knew she’d hoped Ariana would back off.
    I heard some murmurs from the fae around us, remarking upon Ariana’s scars. How ugly they were, how shameful. I thought they might be commenting on purpose, as some subterfuge of the fairy queen, but if so, their taunts seemed to have no effect I could see on Ariana.
    Three minutes was up, and Jesse was safe—and the fae Ariana was holding turned into smoke. She seemed to have been prepared for it, though, because as the ends of him started to dissolve, she reached out and snagged the cloak of the fae who was nearest her. She wrapped the cloak around herself and the fae, then touched the cloak with her cold hand, and a layer of ice covered it, trapping the smoke in the frozen cloth.
    Surreptitiously, I glanced around at the fae who were in the room with us. There had been a few in the hall when we’d gotten here, but the others had entered more purposefully afterward, as if she’d summoned them all. I counted twenty- eight, not including the forest lord, who, I suspected, couldn’t be numbered among her